Most residents are familiar with Dahlonega Walking Tours, a locally-owned business specializing in guided supernatural adventures for more than a decade.
They are particularly well-known for their guided weekend walks around downtown Dahlonega’s most historic and haunted spots, including Mount Hope Cemetery.
But the business offers plenty of other paranormal-themed activities as well, including a wine tour, pub crawl and escape room. They also host paranormal investigation tours at various haunted locations in Lumpkin County.
The site of their most recent investigation, a local Airbnb called The Schoolhouse Cottage, dates all the way back to 1848.
The 1,056 square foot cottage features two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and is rumored to be the original site of The Halfway School, one of many rural community schoolhouses in the area.
It has also been the site of suspected spectral activity, witnessed by family members of the cottage’s current owner, Callie Wheat, and some of her overnight guests.
Last Thursday evening, Dahlonega Walking Tours owner Penny Sharp took a small group of intrepid researchers to The Schoolhouse to find out what makes Wheat’s rental cottage a hotbed for paranormal activity.
HALFWAY HISTORY
The investigation kicked off at 7 p.m., when participants met on East Main Street for a short walk around the square and some basic history of supernatural activity in the town before carpooling over to The Schoohouse Cottage, located about 10 minutes from town on Hwy. 52 East.
When The Nugget arrived, some children were using spirit boxes, handheld paranormal research devices that rapidly scan radio frequencies to produce white noise that ghosts are believed to use to communicate.
Meanwhile, the adults huddled in the cottage’s candle-lit living room as Sharp reviewed the history of the site.
“Remember, this is a very, very rural area, so most people in the area, other than the people that were attending what was then North Georgia Agricultural College, don’t have a lot of reverence for school. They’re mostly farm people and miners, and essentially they’re not really crazy about sending their kids to school,” Sharp said. “So what they did is they made these little schools in little communities. So if you’ve ever heard of Etowah or Frogtown or Auraria or Murrayville, that’s because they were little small communities. Jay Bridge is another example. When you look at some of the names of the roads in this area, really what you’re looking at are what used to be communities. Because all the children had to walk to school, they would have schools that were built fairly close.”
The cottage still has the original floors, ceiling and windows from what is believed to have been The Halfway School, although unfortunately the owner has yet to find any pictures of the original structure.
“I have spent hours in the archives room of the library. I have been trying to find a picture of this school, but there isn’t one that I have come across yet. But David Valentine bought the school from the Whelchels in the mid-80’s,” Wheat said, referring to a prominent family in Dahlonega’s early history.
Wheat said that Madge Whelchel told Valentine that she used to walk to the schoolhouse herself.
“You have to understand a lot of history in Dahlonega is word-of-mouth,” Sharp added. “It really is storytelling—and that’s what families did. A lot of things are really not written down in a small town, and a lot of the history, because of things like fires and floods and buildings being destroyed, a lot of the history disappears.”
Unfortunately, there are also no documented ghost sightings from previous occupants of the cottage either.
“I don’t have any stories from before. I asked the previous owner, but he never lived here. He had renters that were here for 25 years,” Wheat said.
Wheat said she likes to sit around and imagine what her cottage used to look like if and when it was a school.
“I do know that the windows that used to be on that wall were repurposed and the windows in that bedroom. And you can see I think this was one of the back doors. You can see an outline of where a door used to be,” Wheat pointed out.
Sharp said paranormal investigations are alluring because they offer the potential to solve mysteries both historical and spiritual.
“Maybe it won’t be something that other people would find as definitive, but maybe it will satisfy our souls a little bit. And I think it will at Callie’s place … because one of the things she said to me the other day is this is her sanctuary. And you can feel it when you walk in. Guests feel it. It’s not just another Airbnb: It’s a really special place,” Sharp said.
HAUNTED BEDROOMS
After the family in attendance had gone home, the remaining guests continued to explore as the conversation pivoted to tales of recent ghostly encounters.
One of those guests was Dahlonega business owner and professional psychic medium, Kim Pyron.
“When I walked in here, I immediately went to this room,” Pyron said as she re-entered the master bedroom. “Do you feel chills? My skin is about to crawl off my body standing in here.”
Pyron’s friend showed The Nugget photos she had taken just a few minutes earlier. One showed the blurred outline of a human figure reflected in the dresser mirror, while two others showed an orb of light sitting on top of the bed. The orb appeared consistent from two different angles.
“It might not be associated with this house, it may be associated with this furniture,” Pyron noted as she placed her hand on top of the dresser. “When I touch this, the hair on my arms stands up.”
She said the ability to read energy in objects is called psychometry.
Meanwhile, the lights in the master bedroom flickered several times. Later, Wheat recounted the eerie story of a guest who had stayed in that very room back in 2023.
“It was the mom of a little baby girl and her sister, and it was their last night here. They had come for a wedding … The baby was … playing in the crib while the mom was packing. And then those lights started to flicker, and the mom looked up at her baby who was sitting in the crib and was staring into space up there,” Wheat said, gesturing over the bed. “She said ‘Nope,’ and got her baby and they went and slept on the couch and she finished packing the next morning.”
When Pyron entered the smaller guest bedroom, she found herself drawn to a particular spot at the foot of the bed.
Sharp shared a story of another guest encounter that had taken place in 2021.
“A little girl … woke up in the middle of the night and she saw a little boy standing at the end of her bed … At first she thought it was her brother, but then she realized she could see through him. She spent 10 minutes at least staring at this little boy in here,” Sharp said.
Wheat’s mother witnessed another strange event in the same bedroom in 2019.
“She was sleeping in this bed, and her dog was sleeping on the bed with her. His name is Tanner. At some time in the middle of the night, she doesn’t remember what time, but she woke up because Tanner growled, and one book fell off the bookshelf. It just fell off onto the floor. It was this book—I don’t know if you can read the title of it, but the title of the book is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” Wheat said.
INVESTIGATION TOOLS
Back in the living room, Pyron shared some of her own thoughts on the supernatural.
“Earlier one of the kids was asking me ‘What is a ghost?’ The kid says ‘Is it dead people?’ I said ‘Well, you don’t really die because of physics—Remember, energy can’t be created or destroyed, so we just change form,” Pyron said, giving the example of a solid ice cube that evaporates when boiled. “Can you hold it? No, but you can feel it. Just like when you walk in that door. You can feel this place.”
Sharp said that sometimes old-fashioned paranormal investigation tools like crystals, dowsing rods and pendulums are as useful as fancy electronic devices “because old spirits recognize the old metals and the old ways.”
Pyron said it is simply about the physics of energy transfer.
“Copper is an incredible conduit. It picks up energy. What are your best pots and pans made out of? They’re going to be made out of copper, because it picks up the energy,” she explained.
Next, Pyron performed an impromptu demonstration of dowsing rods. She began by keeping the copper rods perfectly level and pointed straight forward.
“Where’s Keith?” she asked as the metal rods in each of her hands rotated 60 degrees to the left, pointing toward the journalist crouched in the corner.
Next, Pyron set a glass of water in the middle of the living room floor.
“I’ve got to find some water, folks. Will you find me some water?” she asked aloud.
As Pyron walked toward the center of the room and hovered directly over the cup, the dowsing rods immediately pivoted inward to cross themselves.
“If there’s a person laying on the floor it will work, too, when you cross over them. Energy transmutes through water very easily, and that’s what our bodies are made of,” she added.
Next, she calibrated a pendulum to provide her with responses to “yes or no” questions.
“Was this the Halfway School?” someone in the room asked.
“I don’t know what a ‘halfway school’ is, but it says ‘yes,’ Pyron indicated. She had been in another room when the old schoolhouse’s name was mentioned.
At the end of the two-hour session, Sharp thanked Pyron for her assistance.
“I don’t think that we necessarily sensed a spirit, but we certainly sensed an energy,” Sharp concluded.
But Pyron said the two are really one and the same phenomena.
“That’s all a spirit is,” she said. “Energy.”